Bride Says Tailor Ruined Dress, Won't Return It Until Paid: "She Said She'll Burn It to the Ground"
Published Dec. 14 2023, 1:13 p.m. ET
The countdown to a couple's wedding should be a joyous and exciting one, but more often than not, it's an extremely stressful experience. There are just so many things that can go wrong — things that you would never even expect.
(Case in point: a Massachusetts bride who found herself in a nightmare after a salon massively screwed up her hair three weeks before her wedding, causing her to lose "50 to 70 percent" of her hair.)
That was bad and I would never wish that on any bride. But unfortunately, that's not the only misfortune that a bride can experience before walking down the aisle.
There are so many things that could go wrong with the dress alone. Maybe it doesn't fit, or it gets stained, or ... you're working with a monster tailor who screws up your wedding dress and won't give it back to you unless you pay her for her mistake.
Bride-to-be Alicia McQueen claims that a tailor used another customer’s measurements to alter her wedding dress and now expects to be paid for the shoddy work.
A tailor messes up a woman's wedding dress three days before her wedding and still expects her to pay for it.
In December 2023, a woman named Alicia McQueen married the love of her life. But the days leading up to saying "I do" and the ones after were agonizing. Alicia took to TikTok in two different videos to unpack her terrible experience with a local tailor who was supposed to be perfecting her wedding dress for the big day.
In one video, Alicia is seen talking in the dark outside of someone's house with two cop cars parked in front.
She begins by explaining that she dropped her wedding dress off to a tailor in town over a month ago, whom she was referred to when she bought her gown. She stayed with the tailor for 45 minutes for all the measurements to be taken.
But on the week of her wedding, a dressless Alicia got a call from the tailor who said she had not started on the dress yet as she had mixed up Alicia's measurements with another customer.
That's probably not the news a bride-to-be wants to hear right before her wedding, but it happens. That said, Alicia told the tailor not to do anything to the dress and that she would come to pick it up.
That's where things got weird. The tailor didn't want to give Alicia her dress back.
The next day — which was three days before her wedding — Alicia went to the tailor's house to pick it up. That is where she learned that the tailor had made the alterations to her dress using someone else's measurements. And on top of that, the tailor had billed her $180 for her services.
The tailor sent her daughter out of the house to tell Alicia that she wouldn't be getting her dress back unless she paid the $180. Alicia understandably didn't want to pay for a dress that was altered using someone else's measurements.
However, she offered to compromise and pay half because at this point she just wanted her dress back and minimize damage. But the tailor's daughter wouldn't budge. "She said 'I’ll burn the f----- to the ground. You won’t ever see your wedding dress again,'” Alicia recalled. "Then she punched the side of my car."
Alicia then called the police. Fortunately, they were able to negotiate with the tailor to give Alicia her dress back free of charge. And as Alicia expected, the alterations the tailor made to her dress were all wrong.
Fast-forward to the next day, Alicia woke up to an unexpected phone call. “She literally went and got her lawyer to take me to court for the $180," Alicia exclaimed.
Alicia argued with the tailor's alleged lawyer that she didn't want to pay her for the incorrect alterations, especially after she asked the tailor not to touch the dress. However, the lawyer was adamant that it didn't matter and she would have to pay.
Alicia explains that after her honeymoon, it's likely that the lawyer will be taking her to court.
“Who does that to a bride? Like, you messed up," Alicia said of the tailor. While many TikTok users who watched Alicia's videos asked for the tailor's name and/or business, Alicia has refused to release the woman's details.
"I’m going to let God deal with her," Alicia said. A few users also claimed in the comment section that the phone call she received from the tailor's alleged attorney might be bogus as it's not common for attorneys to make phone calls like that.
Hopefully, Alicia will post an update soon on her extremely unfortunate situation with the tailor.
